Student startup aims to simplify investing

14 August 2017

Sam Nixon is a final year Law/Commerce student at ANU. While many of his cohort are focused on getting through their final semester and lining up graduate jobs for next year, Sam is pouring most of his time and energy into Mosaic, the fintech startup he co-founded earlier this year.

Mosaic is an app that allows people to invest any amount of money in the companies or products they are interested in. It’s designed to be as accessible and simple as possible, making it easier for those who have never bought shares before to get started in investing their money.

“Mosaic is a low-cost investment platform - we allow people to invest in anything for 99cents. It’s an application now in beta stage, and its significantly cheaper than the traditional platforms. We want to give people access to global and Australian equities, ETS, gold and things that are usually quite difficult to have access to,” said Sam.

He says the inspiration for Mosaic was in breaking down the barriers that young people face when it comes to investing their money.

“We see the financial system creating so much unnecessary complexity which makes it extremely difficult to invest. Property and those sorts of assets are not really accessible to millennials anymore, so investing in stocks is one of the few remaining paths to create wealth. This group in particular is also really open to new technology and new and exciting ways of doing things.”

“We built a housing platform designed to help people save for a house deposit. I was going up to Sydney on the weekends and we were working on this together. Then we started talking to some people from H2 Ventures and we mentioned what we were doing, and they looked at the backend of the platform and said ‘Do you want to expand the idea?’ And so we said ‘let’s give it a go’.”

As a result, Sam’s idea of how his life might look post-graduation has completely changed, but he has decided to embrace any opportunities that come his way.

“We always thought that we’d finish uni, go out and work for a couple of years, get some experience and then take the plunge into something like this. But then we started talking to the guys at H2, and they liked what we were doing and offered us a spot in their accelerator program. It was an opportunity that many people don’t get, and I think with something like this, you will never really be completely ready so you just have to do it when you get the chance.”

They were invited by H2 Ventures to undertake a week long crash course in building a business, and as part of their accelerator program, they are given access to a range of resources such as accounting, technical and legal support, financial backing and an office space to base themselves while they get Mosaic off the ground.

“Both Ben and Toby Heap [of H2 Ventures] have heaps of connections and experience in the fintech space, and working with a cohort of people in a similar situation in Stone & Chalk in Sydney provides a really awesome network.”

The company is still in its early stages, and is currently testing the product through MosaicBeta, with a plan to launch the final product in 2018.

“We’re looking at launching next year, we’re in talks with a few legal firms and we think we have a roadmap to get there.”